Did you ever think it would be possible to control a computer like Tom Cruise does in Minority Report? Well, with a little hacking of the Kinect, you can! A research staff member at MIT used several open source programs to hack the Kinect so that it would respond to certain gestures and hand movements. It works so well that it looks exactly like the scenes you see in the movie. Microsoft may not have realized what was possible with technology like the Kinect, but people everywhere are showing off what it can do on YouTube. If you want to see the hacked Kinect in action, just watch the video below and you will be amazed at how cool it really is.

Starting Tuesday Microsoft Xbox Live will allow you to watch many different mainstream television programming. Using the Kinect, you will be able to search for shows using your voice and hand gestures. Later this month, Microsoft will start adding dozens of other sources of programming, including Verizon FiOS, Comcast’s XFinity, and HBO. As for the few video services Xbox Live has had, including Netflix and Hulu Plus, will be able to use voice searching and other methods. Microsoft’s deal with cable providers stops short of being able to get rid of traditional television, you will still need to pay the cable providers to get the channels on the Xbox. You will, of course, have to pay $60 a year for a Gold membership to Xbox Live.

Halo has been remade in honor of the ten-year anniversary of the Xbox brand. And while it sounds like not much has changed, it’s still kind of a cool thing to do for fans of the series. I still remember playing Halo when it first came out. It was unlike any other game I’d played up to that point. The halo itself was a wonderful graphical backdrop to the alien environments. The action was fast-paced and overall the game was, and I think still is, one of the best-balanced first-person-shooters ever made.

Years after taking Stilwater for their own, the Third Street Saints have evolved from street gang to household brand name, with Saints sneakers, Saints energy drinks and Johnny Gat bobble head dolls all available at a store near you. The Saints are kings of Stilwater, but their celebrity status has not gone unnoticed. The Syndicate, a legendary criminal fraternity with pawns in play all over the globe, has turned its eye on the Saints and demands tribute. Refusing to kneel to the Syndicate, you take the fight to a new city, playing out the most outlandish gameplay scenarios ever seen. To say that Saints Row: The Third is a good time would be a severe understatement. Running naked around the fictional city of Steelport wiping out rival gangs with mind-controlling octopi delivered some of the most fun I’ve had this year. There may be a tendency to dismiss Saints Row as a Grand Theft Auto clone (it isn’t) or as juvenile antics (it is) but when you just want to indulge in some mindless violence and sexual depravity, this will more than suffice.

Yes, that’s four billion Microsoft Points right there. An error in the Xbox Live Rewards program awarded many users more Microsoft Points than they were supposed to receive. To most people this amounted to less than $5 worth but this user reported a gain of $53,687,089.20. Imagine all the content you could buy with that. In the end it was all for naught as Microsoft quickly reclaimed all the points awarded in error.
UPDATE: Apparently what caused this was Microsoft gave the user too many points, which he proceeded to spend right away, so when Microsoft went to take the points back, his Points went into the negative, causing the glitch to occur.

Some owners of Batman: Arkham City have had their saved files disappear mysteriously. Warner Bros. is hoping to fix this issue as soon as possible so they’re asking gamers for information. “Thus far our QA department has been unable to reproduce this issue,” said community manager Andy Cataldo on the official Arkham forums. “For those of you who are experiencing this particular issue, it would be invaluable to our QA team’s ongoing test efforts if you can contact WB Games Support (support@wbgames.com) and let us know some specifics as to the hardware and software configuration of the XBOX 360 machine you are playing the game on.” In your e-mail, Warner Bros. wants you to answer the following questions:

What version of the XBOX 360 hardware are you are experiencing the “disappearing save files” issue on?

What storage method are you using to save your Batman: Arkham City game files to (i.e. XBOX 360 hard drive, XBOX 360 memory unit, USB drive)?

What version of the XBOX 360 system software do you have on your machine?

Are you running a Beta version of the forthcoming XBOX 360 “Holiday 2011” system update?

Have you experienced the “disappearing save files” issue before and/or after installing any Batman: Arkham City DLC content (If yes, please be specific as to the DLC content you have downloaded)?

Have you experienced the “disappearing save files” issue before and/or after installing either of Batman: Arkham City’s two title updates?